tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79971280841022357252014-10-05T00:53:04.417-05:00The RubThe Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-51987892343020347442008-12-29T20:39:00.002-06:002009-02-14T20:43:46.995-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302848519758648706" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 208px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZeAog3rlYI/AAAAAAAAAYk/NFxqyS5eIaA/s320/Benjamin_Button_poster.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Starring</strong>: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett,Taraji P. Henson<br /><strong>Director</strong>: David Fincher<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: December 25, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 165 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Paramount Pictures<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />Every movie made employs the use of some sort of gimmick. Some are smaller than others and they don’t always work but whether it is the cast, the special effects, or something else, every filmmaker uses some device that they hope will allow their movie to rise above their contemporaries. In <em>The Curious Case of Benjamin Button</em> the gimmick is the story. A baby is born with the appearance and all of the physical limitations of an old man who ages backwards through life. It’s really a fascinating premise that, beyond its initial intrigue, stirs a lot of questions. How would one operate under the construction of backwards aging? How would you let it shape your everyday life? On a deeper level, how would you deal with the inevitability of loss in your life that would be compounded by that very construction? It is in the films attempt to answer these questions that you will find its true appeal.<br /><br />At first glance, this film seems like a fairly odd film choice for director <strong>David Fincher</strong>. The styles of his previous films were consistently dark and stylish, in story and design. So why would a director who made his name with films like <em>Fight Club, Se7en, </em>and <em>Zodiac</em> opt for a character driven fairy tale? For starters, he is one of probably a handful of directors with the ability to handle the special effects needed to properly translate the required images to the screen while being able to balance them against the story. If the main device of the movie is the setup, then right behind it would be how the effects were handled. Technologically, the film is a masterpiece. Throughout the film we see Benjamin (<strong>Brad Pitt</strong>) at every point in his life, from grave to cradle. Almost every scene features Pitt at various ages other than his own and you are left with no choice other than to believe it – it is just that seamless. In an early scene you see a child’s body with the 80 year old face of Brad Pitt and you believe it. It is obvious enough to notice but subtle enough for you not to care. It’s only after the film is over do you start to wonder how it was done. The greatest compliment I can give the film is never once are you taken out of the story because of the effects.<br /><br />The movie’s main conviction is that love transcends all things related to time. While still having the appearance of an old man but only ten or so years old in actual age, he meets Daisy, a young girl whose grandmother lives in the nursing home where he has grown up. During her many visits the two form a bond and play as children. As he gets old enough, or young enough in this case, to leave the house and begin living his life on his own, the two cross paths at intermittent times in each of their lives, all while Daisy (<strong>Cate Blanchett</strong>) grows older and Benjamin continues growing younger. The emotional weight of the movie is created in the conflict of the opposing directions of their aging. With the foundation firmly in place, the payoff is that much richer when they are finally able to be together. While this is where most love stories would end, they are still forced to contend with the predestination of his condition and its certain consequences.<br /><br />Aging, love, and loss are things that we all must deal with at some point in our lives and death is an inevitability we all face. Benjamin is no different – he only takes a different path to get there. Or as it is put into perspective for him at one point in his life, “Sugar, we all end up in diapers.” We, of the normally aging variety also have a definite end to our lives; we just don’t know when. A lot of people, like me, would say they prefer it that way, opting for the comfort of attempting to live each day like it is your last, or some other hackneyed brand of optimism. Like most pieces of advice from the bumper sticker pulpit, it is better in principle than execution. In reality all it does is allows us the excuse, the sin, of procrastination because anything we don’t accomplish today can just wait until tomorrow. Benjamin isn’t afforded that opportunity. His life has a finite end laid out; he is just given a bit more notice than the rest of us and the path he chooses with this knowledge in his possession is what makes the film so great.<br /><br />Sprawling epic stories like this have the tendency to drag on in spots, but even at almost 3 hours, <em>The Curious Case of Benjamin Button</em> moves at the pace of a film half as light. Screenwriter <strong>Eric Roth</strong> took some liberties adapting the F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original short story, but wisely chose to steer clear planting Benjamin in the moments of historical circumstance that he did with <em>Forrest Gump</em> (which he also wrote). Doing so would have diminished the significance of the struggles Benjamin faced throughout the film undoing what it had spent so much time trying to accomplish. In other words, it would have been a disaster. Instead, historical moments were sparingly used as to merely anchor the story and depict the passing of time.<br /><br />One could surmise that the gimmick of Benjamin’s aging is what drives the movie, rendering it less effective. It is true that therein lies the framework of the story, but the movie rises above cliché not because of the gimmick but because of the choices he is forced to make because and in spite of his condition. We should all be so wise.<br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">**** out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-8347085204887456342008-12-27T20:34:00.003-06:002009-02-14T20:44:16.099-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: Valkyrie<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd_ao64cvI/AAAAAAAAAYc/qNieLCyPQuU/s1600-h/Valkyrie_poster.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302847181889762034" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 313px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd_ao64cvI/AAAAAAAAAYc/qNieLCyPQuU/s320/Valkyrie_poster.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Terrance Stamp, Eddie Izzard<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Bryan Singer<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: December 25, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 120 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: United Artists<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />Fundamentally speaking, the appeal of <strong>Tom Cruise</strong> in the last few years doesn’t make any sense. Just as soon as he took Katie Holmes hostage and started parading her and her ‘too scared for escape’ look around the world, people seem to have become disinterested in anything he has to do professionally; or so they say. Sure he was great in <em>Tropic Thunder</em>, but I’m talking about the movies he has had to carry on his own. Everyone seems to talk a big game but with the exception of last year’s Lions for Lambs, you have to go all the way back to <em>Magnolia</em>, almost a decade ago, to find a film he starred in that didn’t gross at least $100M domestically. So much for disinterest. Maybe he just has mind control over all of us too.<br /><br />Keep in mind; these aren’t secrets I am exposing for the first time, so why his pick for his latest project was a big budget WWII Hitler assassination movie is beyond comprehension. For a man so caught up on selling his image, it stands to reason that there would be better ways to spend his time. It ended up being much worse than it appeared on the surface. The release date moved so much nobody cared when it was really coming out and as soon as the trailers came out the backlash was already in full effect.<br /><br />Now about that – if you decided upon viewing the trailer that you weren’t going to like the movie because of the American accents, then seeing the movie then complaining about the accents seems a bit counterproductive. Find something else to complain about; or at least, find something more. Yes, it is distracting. Yes, it would have been better had they at least tried, or not replaced them with a handful of soggy Brits. But again, all things we knew from the trailer months ago. So as for you, Mr. 800 lbs Gorilla, if you are going to stay in here you are going to have to sit there with your mouth shut – you’ve been addressed. Let’s move on.<br /><br />The aesthetics may take the spotlight, but the movie actually has a pretty interesting plot. I suppose it’s less a plot than history lesson, depicting the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Conceived by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) who had become disenfranchised with the way Nazi Germany was handling the war, Operation Valkyrie was a plan, of Hitler’s design, that would impliment an interim government in the event of his death. So all Stauffenberg had to do was select the people to run his shadow government, devise the plan to have Hitler killed, and initiate Operation Valkyrie to reinstate the image of his holy Germany. It’s not a bad setup, but even the movie knows it’s a little too tidy, where at one point someone is heard saying the line,<em> “It’s a military operation – nothing goes according to plan.”<br /></em><br />The good news is that it plays out like a cross-section of WWII history. The bad news is that it plays out exactly like a cross-section of WWII history. There are too many wheels in motion long before we even get sat down in the theatre. Think of it as joining our regularly scheduled World War already in progress. Director <strong>Bryan Singer</strong> attempts to hit the ground running showcasing his greatest strength – action, but as the movie barrells ahead there is a lot of groundwork that needs laid before any real action or tension can take place. It finally does in the second hour and when it gets going it ends up being a pretty serviceable war thriller.<br /><br />It’s like mowing the yard when you were younger on the family’s beat up old mower. You know, the one you had to crank a half-dozen times to get it started. It worked fine once you got it started; it was just a pain in the ass getting there. Once you get passed all the preconceptions about the movie it’s really not that bad. Not great, but not terrible. That is, if you can get passed the accents.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">** ½ out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-10606342535258792972008-12-24T20:28:00.001-06:002009-02-14T20:44:30.763-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: Frost/Nixon<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd-GcHk_8I/AAAAAAAAAYU/Vo78gZbdw4Q/s1600-h/Frost_nixon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302845735344340930" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 292px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd-GcHk_8I/AAAAAAAAAYU/Vo78gZbdw4Q/s320/Frost_nixon.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Michael Sheen, Frank Langella, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Ron Howard<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: December 25, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 122 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Universal Pictures<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />In 1977, just a few years removed from the only resignation by a U.S. President in the history of our country, Richard Nixon agreed to be interviewed by a moderately successful British TV personality, David Frost. Over the course of 28 hours of interviews Nixon eventually apologized for the scandals of his administration. Not before or since has Nixon publicly addressed the issues surrounding Watergate.<br /><br />Take a second to let that sink in. It’s only been 30 years since the interviews but the way we get our news today has changed so drastically that a news event like this would be impossible to achieve in today’s news environment. The advent of the internet and the 24-hour cable news channel has completely changed the way we get our news. But in 1977, when network anchors ruled the news on the Big Three, a foreign journalist against the odds scored what is still today considered the most important political interview ever.<br /><br /><em>Frost/Nixon</em> was adapted from the 2007 Broadway play of same name that focused on the interviews and the preparation leading up to them. The outcome of the interviews is what made them as successful as they have become, but any time you have a movie based on actual events, the conclusion ends up being irrelevant. Since that element is removed as the dramatic driving force, the filmmakers had to rely on good old fashion storytelling and performances to push the film.<br /><br />The meat of the story is obviously the interviews themselves, but equally as interesting is everything that happens that leads up to the climax. It wasn’t a simple matter of asking for and conducting an interview. The whole production was the brainchild of David Frost (<strong>Michael Sheen</strong>), conceived on a whim without full knowledge of what he was up against. It was a ratings stunt, nothing more. His offer is $500,000, besting the offer from CBS. He is talked into a larger price. As he begins to realize the process it became apparent that financially, he was in over his head. He was going to be in for everything he had and without investors and ad revenue, there was a chance the interviews would never take place and he would be bankrupt in the process. At the same time, the realization starts to set in that more than ratings, he has the opportunity to give Nixon (<strong>Frank Langella</strong>) “the trail he never had” since Gerald Ford gave him full pardon after he entered office. Nixon, convinced by his handlers that Frost was intellectually inferior, intended to use the interviews to get his name back into the political arena. Well, that and money. Even in retirement Nixon was shown to be driven by greed. So much so that, in an unprecedented move then and an unthinkable one today, Nixon agreed to appear on camera without pre-interview preparation or knowledge beforehand of the questions. All he knew were the general topics to be covered and in what time frame.<br /><br />The interviews provided the drama of a couple of gladiators trading swings of the sword. Much the same way the best parts of <em>The Silence of the Lambs</em> were watching the interaction between Clarice and Dr. Lector, we get to see two competing ends of the spectrum try to outwit each other in a game of cat and mouse. While Frost attempted to swing for the fence with his opening question: “Why didn’t you burn the tapes?”, Nixon’s charismatic defense of anything that had any bite to it proved the approach ineffective. The confident smugness of Nixon, the way he baited Frost, almost playfully, like he wanted Frost to come after him, made you root against him. The way he attempted to convince Frost that the word “corrupt” didn’t mean what he thought it meant, so long as his heart and intentions were pure reminded us of another slippery President that tried to mince words and create his own definitions in the last fifteen years. All of it made you want Frost to bury him if he could, but when the moment came where he began to candidly discuss admissions regarding Watergate, I can’t say that you feel too sorry for him, but he isn’t completely demonized either. For that you can credit Langella’s soon-to-be-Oscar-nominated performance and the writing by <strong>Peter Morgan</strong>. And the fact that <strong>Ron Howard</strong> made on of the best movies he ever has.<br /><br />For as good as the direction, writing, and performances are, I still maintain that the most fascinating part of the movie is the fact that for as recently as the events occurred, the same thing would never happen today. For one, there is less mystery with today’s politicians. Everybody knows about everything they want to know and if someone IS hiding something it takes about ten seconds for it to be all over the fifteen news channels and hundreds of websites. But, perhaps <em>because</em> of the actual Frost/Nixon interviews, there is no way you would ever be able to get an interviewee to agree to the terms Nixon agreed to: no advance knowledge of the questions, sole control over content, etc. No, those days, if they were ever here under normal circumstances, are long gone. Everybody is too interested in making themselves look as good as possible in the public eye to put themselves out there like that. And too many other people have too much to lose or gain to give that amount of control to one person. There’s a word for that, I can’t quite remem–<br /><br />Oh yeah: politics.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">**** out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-34627261048203499602008-11-25T20:21:00.002-06:002009-02-14T20:44:43.364-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: Synecdoche, New York<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd8irXiAiI/AAAAAAAAAYM/2XScpHFSOYc/s1600-h/Synecdoche_New_York_poster.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302844021450867234" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 294px" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd8irXiAiI/AAAAAAAAAYM/2XScpHFSOYc/s320/Synecdoche_New_York_poster.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Charlie Kaufman<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: October 24, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 124 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Sony Picture Classics<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />On a personal level, I consider <strong>Charlie Kaufman</strong> the most talented working screenwriter in Hollywood. I don’t think I am alone in this thought. His resume is one of impressive and envious of anyone in the past however many years you want to use to quantify it. It is one thing to craft a story with intelligent structure and dialogue. It is another thing altogether to create entire universes that have a distinct taste and smell to them. When you sit down to watch a Kaufman scripted film, there is an expected level of chaos and disorder. <em>Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind</em> – all of these films have a wildly imaginative subject and scope, which is exactly the reasons we love them so much.<br /><br /><em>Synecdoche, New York</em> marks Kaufman’s directorial debut and to the general movie-going public it will amount to little more than a confusing movie with a confusing title. Fans of his work will draw pretty much the same conclusion. On one hand it is an almost unapproachably pretentious movie with a title that is difficult to pronounce (‘si-NEK-duh-kee’, by the way). On the other hand it is a movie that sort of transcends explanation. That’s not a movie critic cop-out, it just has many, many layers beyond its face value.<br /><br />On the surface it is about a theatre director making a play. Caden Cotard (<strong>Philip Seymour Hoffman</strong>) has had moderate professional success while everything else in his life seems to be failing on all levels. His wife Adele (<strong>Catherine Keener</strong>) goes to Germany on vacation with their daughter and never returns. He thinks he is dying at every turn, his therapist might be crazier than he is, and his life is chalked full of failed relationships. With his wife Adele, his daughter, a string of female encounters, his body, his feces. He receives a prestegious grant that allows him the financial freedom to create his theatrical masterpiece on the stage. He sets out to gain an understanding of his life and the reasons pieces of it are always failing. The result is a never ending production of his own life, with no audience, that is built to scale in a warehouse in New York with actors and actresses playing everyone he is associated with, including himself, playing out in real time. All the time. For more than twenty years. As with any piece of self reflection, the deeper you dig the more you unearth. Caden’s solution is to sift through the confusion by piling on more. As events happen in his real life, he hires actors to replay the scenarios in voyeuristic fashion so he can observe his own misteps.<br /><br />Like any other movie born of the Kaufman mind, the perception of reality is tweaked and bent until it is almost broken. Amidst the confusion it is really a story about a man who is afraid of dying without making his mark on the world. It is about a man who wants to overcome his failures, or at least understand how and why they exist, both real and perceived. A lot of writers draw from themselves at some point or another – it makes sense being the subject they are most familiar with – but Kaufman takes the unpopular approach of airing all his insecurities and dysfunctions through his characters for the audience to experience with him. It is not only self-referential but self-depreciating. There is a brutal honesty, almost an indignity, through the lens which we view his reflection. It would come across as pretension if there weren’t pieces of all of us in his view of himself. We all feel the same insecurities; they just manifest themselves differently in the Kaufman universe. Think of it as Woody Allen in an altered state and you’ll be close.<br /><br />It is easy to become suffocated by the neurosis on display if there weren’t truth in them. Kaufman has a way of cutting so deeply into his subjects that he surpasses gimmickry and enters a level of honesty that others wouldn’t dare approach. I wont even try to claim that I understood everything in the movie. Even with multiple viewings certain parts of it just are what they are, without explanation. And it may be the least accessible film than the previous entries associated with the Kaufman brand but if you can get passed the perceived vanity and allow yourself to be receptive to its message you might end up surprising yourself at just how normal the whole thing ends up being.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">*** ½ out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-13809874579185019402008-11-21T08:14:00.002-06:002009-02-14T20:44:58.123-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: Twilight<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd6qDd0XnI/AAAAAAAAAX8/DefXrZNlJwM/s1600-h/twilight1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302841949155516018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 296px" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd6qDd0XnI/AAAAAAAAAX8/DefXrZNlJwM/s320/twilight1.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Catherine Hardwicke<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: November 21, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 121 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG-13<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Summit Entertainment<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />The best part about being a film critic is that my sole purpose as it pertains to this site is to give my opinion. There are a few more subtleties that go into it, but for all intents and purposes my responsibility to the reader doesn’t go much farther than telling you what I think about movies. People read reviews to determine whether or not to see a particular movie and, for me, the beauty of it is that there is no wrong answer. I tell you what I think and you make up your own mind. Movies like <em>Twilight</em> come along every so often that make my job that much easier. I could tell you the middle hour is ruined by a subplot involving a dancing one-legged hobo fornicating with members of the Catholic Church for money and you would shrug it off and see it anyway.<br /><br />I have reserved the right of non-participation in the growing recreational activity of <em>Twilight</em> bashing that has become so popular in the past few months. Attacking the mob mentality of zealous fans is a bandwagon that would be an easy target to jump on, but I haven’t any level of education on the subject to warrant my involvement in such practices. The Twilight fan base, loyal, loud and proud as they are, has been forced to defend their passion to those that have, raising the pitch to a deafening level. So we are left with this game of back and forth that doesn’t really amount to anything because no one had seen the movie, thereby rendering the basis of everyone’s arguments – from both sides – invalid by default.<br /><br />Well I have seen it and I have good news and bad news. The good news is there really aren’t any hobos. The bad news is the movie really isn’t that good either. I would be remiss if I didn’t qualify the review by saying I have not read the books. To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of them before starting to write for this site. I only say that for the sake of disclosure but it has no bearing on my ability to enjoy the movie. Look at the film adaptation of any book; if they are good, they are good in their own right – the film shouldn’t come with pre-requisite reading. Books are made into films because it is assumed the story will carry the film. The problem with <em>Twilight</em> is no matter how you look at it, it just doesn’t.<br /><br />You all know the story, but for the few that don’t, I’ll quickly bring you up to speed. Bella (<strong>Kristen Stewart</strong>) moves to small town Washington to live with her father and meets the mysterious Edward Cullen (<strong>Robert Pattinson</strong>) who happens to be a vampire whose family lives secretly among the townspeople of Forks, Washington. Edward saves Bella from a near death experience and the two begin to fall in love. She finds out what he is – doesn’t care – and the two embark on a romantic journey that eventually endangers her life leaving him and his family to save her. I take no offense to the story itself, but it is very awkward and kind of unbelievable. Not ‘awkward’ as in teenagers falling in love is always a little clumsy, and not because he is a vampire and she should be scared of him (although mildly, but I can get on board with the ‘love conquers all’ motif), but the pacing is such that it takes for-EVER to get going and by the time they actually come to trust one another and fall in love it seems like they had been fighting it for nothing and now they are so swiftly and madly in love it just doesn’t make sense. I am even willing to give a pass by assuming pieces of the book were left out in lieu of a two hour run time but I can’t help an overall feeling of, well, awkwardness. It doesn’t help that the performances in the movie were laughable at times (literally, the crowd I was with laughed way too many times when it was supposed to be sincere on screen); only Pattinson showed fleeting moments of ability. His fans may be on to something because with the right material, I can see him becoming one hell of a leading man. Sadly for most of the Twilight he was resigned to looking creepy and uncomfortable. I understand what he was going for, it just didn’t work.<br /><br />There have been a lot of comparisons drawn between <em>Twilight</em> and the <em>Harry Potter</em> series. Both are teen fantasy dramas based on insanely popular books with an even wilder fan base. I don’t want to start the whole <em>Harry Potter</em> vs. <em>Twilight</em> argument, but on the basis of overall appeal, there is a reason the <em>Harry Potter</em> films are more widely accepted that goes beyond its box office totals. The special effects are incredible (more on that in a minute) but the stories themselves are what draw the most attention. It would be easy for non-fans to dismiss them both because they don’t like stories of wizards or vampires. But strip them down to their fundamental story elements for a minute. If you take the wizardry and magic of Harry Potter out of the equation, you are left with the story of an orphan involved in a struggle with the man who killed his parents while trying to overthrow the evil surrounding him in order to free his people. It’s your basic revenge story with a splash of good vs. evil. That’s pretty heady stuff for a set of children’s books. Adults buy into the themes because they are basic enough to promote some form of emotional investment. That and they are the basis of countless great stories from film and print and something they are familiar with. Add back in your wizards and magic and kids are immediately drawn to the aesthetics of the story. All the sudden you have a story that people on a variety of levels can identify with that is worthy of their attachment.<br /><br /><em>Twilight</em> is in the same boat except when you follow the same exercise you realize it’s got a lot of filler and sort of relies on the gimmick to propel the story. Remove the vampires from the story and you are left with the story the new girl in school that falls in love with a guy. They have some basic ‘Romeo and Juliet’ complications that could prevent them from being together but on the whole it is a teenage love story. I have absolutely no problem with that, but in terms of broad appeal it just doesn’t stack up when you look at the big picture. I thought the exact same thing when I watched <em>Brokeback Mountain</em>. I enjoyed the film, for the performances more than anything, but when you take away the theme of homosexuality, the element that made the film as notable as it was, and tell it as a basic love story the same way and it just doesn’t hold up. I know what you’re thinking, “Who cares?” My point is that when you add a layer of fanaticism it should be to compliment the stories not quantify them. When you start adding pieces to the story for the sake of dressing it up you are left with little more than the lipstick on a pig analogy.<br /><br />I heard complaints coming out of my screening that the movie would have been better with improved special effects. I would caution the use of that as an excuse because good movies come from story telling. Not every movie has a <em>Lord of the Rings</em> effects budget and I don’t discredit the film for its effects. I was actually rather impressed with what they were able to accomplish without them. You start talking about adding in high dollar effects and we are back to the previous examples. The movie isn’t any better or worse because of them. And as someone who hasn’t read the books I can’t speak for what may or may not have been left from the book, nor do I care. The books may be the greatest thing in print since the bible but if you made a movie about that and left out the part about the resurrection it wouldn’t be half good either and no one would care.<br /><br />I’ll be honest; I wish I liked <em>Twilight</em> more than I did. The fans have proven that they are nothing if not impassioned and very protective of their baby. To feel that strongly about something, however blind and misguided, is sort of endearing and actually left me a little envious. That being said, I saw <em>Twilight</em> at a midnight showing amidst a sea of electrified <em>Twilight</em> fans. They were an eager and vocal group but approachable. I talked to a row of girls sitting next to me before the film started and they told me all about how they loved the books and thought Pattinson was the dreamiest thing on wheels but they worried the movie wouldn’t live up to their expectations. There is something to be said for fans of the material – not just ill tempered critics like me – having reservations about their beloved books not adapting well to the screen.<br /><br />In the second half of the movie I began watching the crowd out of the corner of my eye for reactions and I noticed about a half a dozen times the girl sitting next to me smacking her palm to her forehead and chuckling at something cheesy that had just happened onscreen. And all I could think was in that moment where both sides of the <em>Twilight</em> frenzy had joined in secret agreement, she was going to walk out of that theatre and tell one of her friends who wasn’t there with her all about it – the good and the bad – and the result would be the same as if I had told her myself:<br /><br />It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.<br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">** out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-61966050768933046772008-10-19T20:00:00.002-05:002009-02-14T20:45:10.205-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: W.<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd3_OEmftI/AAAAAAAAAX0/oci686JBhxg/s1600-h/W_ver4.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302839014244908754" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SZd3_OEmftI/AAAAAAAAAX0/oci686JBhxg/s320/W_ver4.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Oliver Stone<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: October 17, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 129 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG-13<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Lions Gate<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />Any comedian will tell you the secret to a good joke is to make it accessible, have a good setup, and kill with the punch line. I don’t know that there is necessarily a golden formula but this seems like pretty sound advice on a general level. I suppose variations of the same thing can be said about making movies. Director <strong>Oliver Stone</strong> had nothing if not a golden setup. A movie about the exiting President of the United States, while he is still in office, mere days before the election that would remove him from power, and with just enough time to reflect on his last eight years in office. Stone being no stranger to controversy or films of historical significance seemed to be in a perfect position to move in for the kill. Instead we got what those in retail refer to as the old ‘bait and switch’.<br /><br /><em>W.</em> does show us what we expected to see from this movie; that George W. Bush (<strong>Josh Brolin</strong>) grew up as a hard partying man of privilege who rarely had to deal with consequences for anything he did or said. He was an irresponsible, womanizing, carousing, spoiled little rich kid who wouldn’t and couldn’t hold a job. Any trouble he got into was fixed by a phone call from his father, George H.W. Bush (<strong>James Cromwell</strong>). It also told how Dubya fell ass-backwards into politics and eventually became the leader of the free world. It would almost be an inspiring “little engine that could” type story, if not for knowing the details about how everything actually turned out. The pre-release posters and trailers suggested the movie would be a caustic illustration of the rise and fall of the 43rd President of the United States. Turns out, <em>W.</em> shows a surprising lack of poignancy, political or otherwise.<br /><br />Bear in mind, Oliver Stone is a man who built a career out of making controversial films based on actual events of historical significance. He’s not even a stranger to Presidential controversy (<em>JFK</em>, <em>Nixon</em>). Stone has turned this type of film into a brand name, largely based on the controversy his films willfully embody. This time, for one reason or another, he seemed to completely abandon ship. <em>W.</em> didn’t have enough bite to be the satire it wanted but was just mean enough to be unsympathetic. Just when I thought I understood which angle they were going for, the table turned. With a film like <em>W.</em> you expect, if not demand, that that the film pick a side, especially with Stone in the driver’s seat. The expectation was built before a page of dialogue was ever written.<br /><br />After seeing the film I started questioning the timing of its release. If it was satire they were going for, why now? What left is there to gain by taking one last whack at a piñata that has long since been emptied? Wouldn’t that approach have been a lot more impactful had it waited until the cake cooled before applying the frosting? If it was sympathy they were after, again, why now? Wouldn’t it have helped out even a year ago before Bush’s legacy had already been cemented?<br /><br />There is just too much that didn’t fit together for W. to have worked like it was supposed to. In an effort to rush it into theatres before the election the whole thing felt slapped together. For as disconnected a film as it was there were some really great performances; namely Josh Brolin as Dubya and <strong>Richard Dreyfuss</strong> as his second in command, Dick Cheney. Both men opted for performance over impression and both helped carry the film through some of the slower parts. This is all far more than I can say for the treatment <strong>Thandie Newton</strong> gave to the character of Condoleezza Rice. It is less surprising how bad per impersonation was but rather how no one else filming noticed how bad it was. Regarding performances, the problem in a movie with this many moving parts is that it’s impossible for the array of characters to get their just development. In the end it mostly felt like a bunch of famous people dressing up and acting like a bunch of other famous people doing MADtv skits out of order for two hours.<br /><br />Every time <em>W.</em> had a chance to go for the throat, Stone turned a sympathetic eye on his subject and gave him an excuse. By suggesting that Bush has a reason for being the way he is, you remove any accountability he has coming because it suggests that he didn’t have a choice. It’s not just a stretch but more a shame that Stone thought it would be just that easy.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">** out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-4890832085689210542008-10-07T02:30:00.001-05:002009-02-14T20:45:34.293-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: How to Lose Friends & Alienate People<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SOsQT73JQkI/AAAAAAAAASg/P-ruuzB_a1w/s1600-h/Lose_friends_and_alienate_people.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254311324930359874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SOsQT73JQkI/AAAAAAAAASg/P-ruuzB_a1w/s320/Lose_friends_and_alienate_people.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Megan Fox, Jeff Bridges <strong>Director</strong>: Robert B. Weide<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: October 3, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 110 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: MGM<br /><br /><em>How to Lose Friends &amp; Alienate People</em> reminds me of a dog I had when I was a kid. It was this huge Great Dane that would lumber around and trip all over himself and destroy anything in the process. Anyone who saw him for the first time would be scared to death of him, but he was dumb as a bag of hammers and just a harmless. That’s pretty much where the comparison stops because I loved that dog and still have fond memories of him. On the other hand, I saw the movie late last night and can barely remember it enough to write this review.<br /><br />Sidney Young (<strong>Simon Pegg</strong>) runs a British celebrity rag and makes a living pissing people off; crashing celebrity parties to get close to people more famous than him and patting himself on the back when he is successful at doing so. In his pocket he proudly keeps a laminated photo of himself in the wrong end of a Clint Eastwood headlock. He’s that guy. For no reason that is explained with any sensibility, he is recruited by Clayton Harding (<strong>Jeff Bridges</strong>) to come across the pond and work for Sharps Magazine, an upscale New York magazine with celebrity reputation. Even before his first day of work he is already trying to use his new position to get women to notice him. He hits on a girl at a bar named Alison (<strong>Kirsten Dunst</strong>). Guess where she works? That ends without mention and we’ll just say the first woman he takes home from a club doesn’t go as planned. His first night in America is moderately funny, if not 100 percent predictable but by the time he starts working you can see exactly where it’s headed. He causes random mischief over and over again, isn’t nearly as victimized by repercussions as he should be for the stunts he pulls, plays it straight for awhile to get ahead then swings for a bit of personal vindication. It’s a grown up version of <em>Home Alone</em> without the holiday sentiment. Or at least without the holiday.<br /><br />I have long since conceded to the fact that a majority of the movies we see during any given year will follow a clearly laid path, so to dislike a movie just because the formula is predictable is a little bit of a back-handed complaint. I can handle formula so long as the pieces that make it up shine through enough to get you passed it. There were enough reasons why <em>How to Lose Friends &amp; Alienate People</em> could have been good. Hollywood satire is always a ripe sandbox to play in if it’s done even half right and Simon Pegg has proven his British comedy reliability in the past with movies like <em>Shaun of the Dead</em> and <em>Hot Fuzz</em>. The only thing he proved this time around is that without <strong>Edgar Wright</strong>, his manic little British-guy act isn’t nearly as heartily received. <strong>Megan Fox</strong> as Sophie Maes, a young starlet on the rise, would have been funnier if it didn’t seem like she was just playing herself. Maybe that was the point, but it was boring and obvious. Kirsten Dunst continues to prove her transparency with each passing role. As far as performances go, for as little screen time as they were allowed, <strong>Gillian Anderson</strong> as Sophie Maes’ puppeteer of a publicist and Jeff Bridges were both dead on. I’d like to imagine that both of their performances were what the rest of the cast was going for.<br /><br />The reason <em>How to Lose Friends &amp; Alienate People</em> fell apart were that the pieces of the machine that should have allowed it to rise above its own mediocrity simply didn’t deliver as promised. It wanted to be a scathing look at the Hollywood machine from the inside perspective of an outsider who doesn’t fit the mold. When it looked like it wasn’t getting there on concept alone it tried to incorporate the use of that famous dry British wit for added punch. But just when it started to show its teeth it played it safe instead of going for the kill just like that stupid dog I used to have. It’s too bad too, because the movie had the makings, at least in concept, of a pretty decent little comedy but like the man the movie is based on, found ways to screw it up without so much as an ounce of effort.<br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">* 1/2 out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-3820002464914410592008-09-29T19:30:00.001-05:002009-02-14T20:46:03.238-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: Choke<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SOFzVT3GHSI/AAAAAAAAASE/yEthIv5mnbI/s1600-h/choke.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251605450436517154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SOFzVT3GHSI/AAAAAAAAASE/yEthIv5mnbI/s320/choke.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Sam Rockwell, Angelica Huston, Brad William Henke, Kelly Macdonald<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Clark Gregg<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: September 26, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 89 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Fox Searchlight Pictures<br /><br />Before a single scene was ever filmed, the movie <em>Choke</em> was at a disadvantage. Whether or not the film would be any good was of little relevance. It was already handicapped by two inevitable comparisons: to the <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong> novel the movie was based on and to the <strong>David Fincher’s</strong> <em>Fight Club</em>, also adapted from a Palahniuk book. They are fair comparisons for obvious reasons but in the interest of continuing that fairness I watched this movie with two thoughts in mind. One, this wasn’t going to be <em>Fight Club</em>. <em>Choke</em> didn’t have the director, stars or the budget to even come close to competing. Two, and most importantly, the books are always better. Saying you didn’t like a movie adapted from a book because it wasn’t as good as the book is like saying you didn’t like <em>Star Wars</em> because you don’t like science fiction. I’m not saying it’s impossible or that some films haven’t come close, it’s just a stupid thing to say.<br /><br />Victor Mancini (<strong>Sam Rockwell</strong>) has, what could be described as, baggage. Lots of baggage. He is a sex addict struggling to complete his recovery. He has a go-nowhere job as a historical interpreter at a colonial-era reenactment community. His mother, Ida (<strong>Angelica Huston</strong>) is in the hospital with a form of dementia that prevents her from recognizing Victor even though he visits daily. He had to drop out of med school to work and pay for his mother’s medical care. His job doesn’t sufficiently meet all of the financial requirements of the hospital so he has resorted scamming people. He goes to nice restaurants and pretends to be choking so unsuspecting patrons will ‘save’ him, feel bad, and send him money. Money he uses to pay for his mother’s hospital stay. A mother that doesn’t recognize him or deserve the attention she is getting. You get the idea; he’s got problems.<br /><br />If that wasn’t enough, Victor’s best friend Denny (<strong>Brad William Henke</strong>) always tries his best to help when and where he can, but has his own bag of sexual perversions to work through. And to further add to the confusion, Paige Marshall (<strong>Kelly Macdonald</strong>), a doctor at Ida’s hospital, throws the entire foundation of Victor’s existence for a loop with her idea for a ‘miracle cure’. There is enough craziness to go around and Victor always ends up in the middle, even if it is mostly of his own construction. He works during the day, then goes to see his mother, tours sex addict support groups at night and does it all over again the next day. The movie plays less with traditional form of narrative direction than a cross-sample of everything Victor would encounter during the course of any given week. Like the book, the movie ends without a great deal of growth from the main characters; the only uplifting part is in the hope that growth could at least be possible. Which I guess is growth, more or less.<br /><br />First time director <strong>Clark Gregg</strong> (who also wrote the screenplay), works the camera with the efficiency of someone far more seasoned. He is able to juggle the multiple tones of the film to quite a remarkable degree of success. The movie doesn’t capture the tone of the book, but it also doesn’t seem like it was trying. It is always a risk, especially when dealing with someone else’s celebrated words and vision, but I admire his impudent approach. What’s more, he was able to get some really great performances out of his cast, especially Sam Rockwell. The character of Victor Mancini is so layered that it would be difficult for an actor of lesser talent to tie them together as seamlessly as Rockwell does. His jumping back and forth between the vast swings of emotion was fun and pretty impressive to watch.<br /><br />I’m not saying <em>Choke</em> is without its problems. Denny’s rock castle needed either far more or far less screen time because it just felt thrown in for added weirdness. The flashbacks to Victor’s childhood were too few in number and information to give us any real insight, and the big twist at the end felt clumsy and anticlimactic. But what did impress me was that Clark Gregg was able to take this material, spin it, and give us something almost completely different. The movie is much more a twisted romantic black comedy than the dark satire of the book. They both have their strengths but the movie works, either because of or in spite of, the liberties it took with the written story.<br /><br />Just don’t ask me which I liked better.<br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">*** out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-6419491946940387462008-08-14T00:50:00.001-05:002009-02-14T20:46:32.506-06:00MOVIE REVIEW: Tropic Thunder<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SKPH4q596NI/AAAAAAAAARM/1lhRg8ZIkPM/s1600-h/Tropic_thunder_ver3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234246968338671826" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SKPH4q596NI/AAAAAAAAARM/1lhRg8ZIkPM/s320/Tropic_thunder_ver3.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Ben Stiller<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: August 13, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 107 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: DreamWorks Pictures<br /><br />This country loves its parody, doesn’t it? The National Lampoon brand made a career out of it, <em>Saturday Night Live</em> is in its 34th season and late night talk shows, a staple of which is poking fun at current events, have been around for over half a century. As much as people would sometimes like to turn their nose up and scoff at the audacity of the envelope being pushed, the market has been thriving almost as long as the medium has existed. So it always baffles me when these rights activists get their draws in a bunch over something that, even in the wildest stretches of imagination, were never meant to be taken seriously.<br /><br /><em>Tropic Thunder</em> is a Hollywood movie making fun of Hollywood making movies. On the set of “the most expensive war movie ever made”, first-time director Damien Cockburn (<strong>Steve Coogan</strong>) can’t pull his lead actors from their pools of self-absorption, costs are spiraling out of control and the studio threatens to shut down production for good. He decides that he will set the actors loose in the jungles of Southeast Asia (and into the path of some real local mercenaries) to find their way back. All while they think they are still filming their Vietnam movie. The story itself isn’t terribly original or complicated – it tastes almost exactly like a dish I had years ago called <em>Three Amigos</em> – but the point of the movie isn’t in the premise, which only exists to drive the story, it is in the parody.<br /><br /><em>Tropic Thunder</em> is full of characters riddled with cliché and satire, but that is exactly the point. Tugg Speedman (<strong>Ben Stiller</strong>) is the highest paid action star in the world until his attempt to turn in a serious performance is met with collective disdain and his career plummets. Jeff Portnoy (<strong>Jack Black</strong>) is a leading comedic actor known for his one-note, multi-wardrobed performances, who has fallen into the well of drug addiction. Kirk Lazurus (<strong>Robert Downey Jr</strong>.) plays – stay with me – an Australian method actor with multiple Academy Awards to his credit who, in the interest of his craft, undergoes a skin pigmentation procedure to make him appear African American so he can play the black lead in the movie. There are a big handful of smaller and cameo appearances that are mostly perfect – especially one in particular that you will know as soon as you see it. – but the movie will probably be remembered for Robert Downey Jr.’s near blackface performance. Watching a real black man try to argue with a fake black man about his fake blackness is funny by itself but realizing that neither of them gets the joke not only doesn’t get old, it’s priceless.<br /><br />Hollywood has been making fun of itself for years; it just hasn’t been done this well, or this funny, in awhile. It is not difficult to connect the dots between the characters and the subjects of their prodding. And that is exactly what makes it funny. Most of these jokes are ones we make to our movie watching friends like we are some kind of experts on the subject. Like that guy at the office that everyone secretly makes fun of behind his back for having a mullet and a jean jacket until that one day when he says, <em>“No shit, I have a mullet. Wanna go for a ride in my Camero and listen to Billy Squire?”</em> Knowing that Hollywood gets the joke too makes it that much more hilarious. If this movie had been made even ten years ago it probably wouldn’t strike the same tone it does today. We’d all still get the satire in theory but our exposure to the process of filmmaking, thanks to the internet and celebrity gossip sites and TV shows, makes us as an audience are more tuned in to the behind the scenes shenanigans and the jokes cut deeper and are funnier because of it.<br /><br />What makes <em>Tropic Thunder</em> the funniest movie of the summer is that everything they are making fun of is so over the top and done with just the right amount of self-awareness to realize, and further satirize how ridiculous it is.<br /><br />To anyone who still doesn’t get the joke, lighten up, it’s only a movie.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">*** ½ out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-17649849566040134072008-08-13T00:21:00.001-05:002009-02-14T20:46:55.929-06:00DVD REVIEW: Smart People<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SKJxRypydAI/AAAAAAAAARE/2i5iFHTCT_4/s1600-h/smart+people+dvd.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233870267426698242" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SKJxRypydAI/AAAAAAAAARE/2i5iFHTCT_4/s320/smart+people+dvd.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Noam Murro<br /><strong>DVD Release Date</strong>: August 12, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 95 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Miramax Films<br /><br />I will preface this review with an admission of guilt that I am more than happy to announce as loud as it will take for anyone to hear it: I can’t stand <strong>Ellen Page</strong>. In my humble opinion <em>Juno</em> was just alright and my distaste for the movie rests solely on the shoulders of its star. I found myself defending my position during the films release more than I felt necessary and the singular argument that came from the other camp was that if I like her in <em>Hard Candy</em> (I did) and hated her in <em>Juno</em>, then I must have disliked the character Juno more than the person acting as her. That wouldn’t be a bad argument if it weren’t completely wrong. On the timeline of this longstanding debate, <em>Smart People</em> may have dealt the death blow for the opposing side. But let me back up just a touch.<br /><br />As a film critic, I would like to think I am subjective enough not to let a singular performance ruin an otherwise decent movie. It hasn’t always held true (see: <em>Juno</em>), but I was bound and determined not to let it happen here. In other words, I went into it with an open mind. I am proud to say that I did not find <em>Smart People</em> to be a bad movie because of Ellen Page. No, this time it was a group effort.<br /><br />Lawrence Wetherhold (<strong>Dennis Quaid</strong>) is a literature professor at a local college. Not only can his students, peers and family not stand him, he seems to almost prefer it that way. He blames it on the fact that he is a lost soul since his wife passed away, but hearing that past students felt the same way suggests that he has always been a miserable curmudgeon and only now has a comfortable excuse. His daughter Vanessa (<strong>Ellen Page</strong>) seems to share his flair for the dramatic. A member of the Young Republicans, shooting for the perfect SAT score with no friends or life outside of the walls of misery the family seems to be insulated in, she follows daddy’s path in lockstep. A series of events land Lawrence in the hospital in the care of Dr. Janet Hartigan (<strong>Sarah Jessica Parker</strong>) and in the compromising position of relying on his adopted brother Chuck (<strong>Thomas Haden Church</strong>) for help. Upon his discharge, he fumbles his way into a date with the Dr. Hartigan. Then screws it up. Then inexplicably gets another date. Then screws it up again. And so on. The whole movie revolves around the central fact that not one of its characters can function in or navigate their way through any relationship, romantic or otherwise, and beyond the flighty (adopted) brother Chuck, everyone in the movie is a miserable wreck. I take that back; Chuck is a mess too, but he seems to be the only one trying to outrun the pack. I have no problem peering into a snow globe of the unfortunate. Seeing people climb out of a well despair, of their design or not, is the basis of a lot of good movies. But when people are there of their own volition coupled with a stubborn refusal for change, it is difficult to generate any sympathy - especially when the majority of the dialogue is reserved for spelling out their level of discontent.<br /><br />Beyond the story itself, the actors are all guilty of thinking everyone will fall for it without questioning anything. Every interaction in the movie is forced. Sarah Jessica Parker and Dennis Quaid have a laughable lack of chemistry that may have fit the story better if it weren’t so overdone. Ellen Page could have done herself a favor and not followed Juno up with a character that is basically a carbon copy; albeit a few years more cynical. The only ray of hope is Thomas Haden Church and even he is reduced to a one-note, zany slob relative that is more obvious than it is refreshing. The story is clunky, the characters are smug and self-absorbed and the acting is so pretentious and whiney that I just can’t get passed the fact that they are trying too hard to make this movie something it is obviously not.<br /><br />Margaret Thatcher once said, <em>“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”</em> These characters obviously didn’t get that message. I just wish there would have at least been a scene where someone took them all out back and gave them something to cry about.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">* ½ out of ****</span></strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-39020140202748412742008-08-08T03:38:00.000-05:002008-08-08T03:42:12.841-05:00Review: The Midnight Meat Train<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SJwGPHAkZ7I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/hRLRGiKechM/s1600-h/Midnight_meat_train_ver2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5232063723746912178" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SJwGPHAkZ7I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/hRLRGiKechM/s320/Midnight_meat_train_ver2.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Vinnie Jones, Brooke Shields<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Ryuhei Kitamura<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: August 1, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 111 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Lionsgate Films<br /><br />Describing the instability in my affection for horror movies goes beyond pointing out the obvious. I like the classics and I went through my “slasher phase” in the eighties, but I have no time for the new school idea of horror movies. I have the <em>Saw’s</em> and <em>Hostel’s</em> of the world to thank for that. And don’t even get me started on Asian remakes. But this love of ours for the moving picture is cyclical enough that, like anything else, if you wait it out, something will come along to restore our faith. <em>The Midnight Meat Train</em> is that movie.<br /><br />Based on a short story by <strong>Clive Barker</strong> (I haven’t read it), <em>The Midnight Meat Train</em> has a pretty simple premise. Leon Kauffman (<strong>Bradley Cooper</strong>) is a photographer struggling to hit it big. His work focuses mainly on inhabitants of the city in their element at night. When Susan Hoff (<strong>Brooke Shields</strong>), the head of a prominent art gallery challenges him to dig deeper and find the darker side of his subjects, he does exactly that. On a shoot one night he stops a woman from being attacked by a group of men but ends up with some extraordinary pictures from the ordeal. The paper the next morning tells a different story. The next night he sees a man he thinks may have been involved and begins following him. It turns out, that man known only as Mahogany (a perfectly used <strong>Vinnie Jones</strong>), is a serial killer who literally butchers late night passengers on the subway. What starts out as a chance meeting turns into an obsession for Leon as he continues to try and prove his own conspiracy theory to his wife Maya (<strong>Leslie Bibbs</strong>) and to a certain degree, himself. <br /><br />Vinnie Jones may be the perfect villain for this movie but the real star performance is director <strong>Ryuhei Kitamura</strong>, the critically acclaimed Japanese director making his American debut. Do not allow yourself the disservice of dismissing the movie as a vanity project full of style and short on substance. The story may be pretty straightforward but the direction is anything but. Kitamura proves that what makes great Asian horror so great is the exact ingredient missing from most American submissions: mood and tension. The dimly lit, almost nightmarish cinematography would be enough to surpass the majority of horror movie wannabes in and of itself, but the camera work adds much depth to the movie. The CG is abundant but done in a way that doesn’t draw attention to itself. During certain sequences the camera acts as a voyeur, working just ahead of the action enough that you want to actually lean over in hopes of seeing everything before it all catches up to itself. <br /><br />When it’s all said and done, <em>The Midnight Meat Train</em> is hardly perfect. The title is obvious, either brilliantly or embarrassingly, I’m still not sure which. There were a few elements that were either better explained in the original story (I’m told most of them are) or not at all, and the ending is just this side of bat-shit crazy – but it all worked on the level that you would expect from a good horror movie. It is dark and bleak and gory when it needs to be without being over the top. The good news is <em>The Midnight Meat Train</em> is the cream of this year’s horror movie crop. The bad news is that hardly anyone will get to see it, at least in theatres. <br /><br />The long and short is that <em>The Midnight Meat Train</em> was given the green light by the former head of Lionsgate. You remember, that studio that came into prominence and financial success with the <em>Saw</em> and <em>Hostel</em> franchises? It seems that they want to run with the big dogs so they brought in new management and scrapped all the pending projects so they can become the kind of studio that puts out schmaltzy drivel for the masses. In other words, crap that nobody likes that inexplicably makes loads of cash. <em>The Midnight Meat Train</em> was deemed too dark and bleak to live up to their new model of quality control so the wide release was scrapped in lieu of a 100 theatre release in the secondary market to make way for a forthcoming DVD release. The shame in that, beyond biting the hand that fed them, is that that just because they didn’t know how to market it doesn’t make it a bad movie or one that wouldn’t make money. I guess my message to Lionsgate is that horror fans are a loyal bunch and they will seek out movies like this – they crave them. Hell, they’ll see almost everything that is released by virtue of diminished supply alone regardless of how stupid it looks or ends up being as a finished product.<br /><br />But I guess you already knew that, didn’t you?<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong>* * * out of * * * *</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-24010472510039442482008-08-01T00:03:00.000-05:002008-08-01T00:07:42.216-05:00Review: Step Brothers<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SJKZVvKQheI/AAAAAAAAAQs/JsHZrYbbqhE/s1600-h/StepbrothersMP08.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5229410716046362082" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SJKZVvKQheI/AAAAAAAAAQs/JsHZrYbbqhE/s320/StepbrothersMP08.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Adam McKay<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: July 25, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 95 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Columbia Pictures<br /><br />Like <em>Wedding Crashers, Knocked Up</em> and <em>The 40-Year Old Virgin</em> before it, <em>Step Brothers</em> is the latest in the trend of comedies where title alone sells you on the movie. All you needed to know was that <strong>Will Ferrell</strong> and <strong>John C. Reilly</strong> are adults who become step brothers after their parents get married. Your level of expectation is your own problem, but the title and cast told you whether or not you wanted to see this movie.<br /><br />Me? I was sold. I like Will Ferrell. I agree that he is teetering on shark jumping territory as of late (I wrote in my review for <em>Semi-Pro</em> that his act was growing stale), but he has done enough quality work that as a collective group, the good outweighs the bad by a landslide. So I guess I should say that I still like Will Ferrell. But it is increasingly coming from a place of loyal reminiscence than active appreciation.<br /><br /><em>Step Brothers</em> really is nothing more than I already described. Brannen Huff (Ferrell) is 39 years old, rarely employed and still lives with his mother Nancy (<strong>Mary Steenburgen</strong>). Dale Doback (Reilly) is equally fated and lives with his fater Robert (<strong>Richard Jenkins</strong>). Robert and Nancy meet on a whim, get married, and move in together. As the “boys” are forced to live together and interact, their aggravated laziness threatens the very foundation of the new family. The impact the boys’ actions have on the parents goes down a path of uninspired obviousness as they go back and forth between being friends and enemies.<br /><br />For as talented an actor as John C. Reilly has been known to be, he possesses that rare quality of being able to balance his dramatic and comedic roles. His willingness not to take himself to seriously is the perfect volley to Ferrell’s serve. They are pretty evenly matched in the comedic arena when they are together. But while Ferrell tries his best to recapture some of the boyish naiveté that made <em>Elf</em> so successful, it doesn’t quite fit here because deep down the movie is just a little too mean spirited to make it work. Not that it is particularly a bad thing. In a movie as implausible and unbelievable as this, who am I to squawk at character development and dramatic range because let’s face it – <em>Step Brothers</em> isn’t that kind of movie.<br /><br />No, <em>Step Brothers</em> is of the same brand of one-upmanship that all R-rated comedies have (d)evolved into in the last ten years. Ever since that kid that no one had ever heard of stuck his dingy in an apple pie and reinvented the genre, everyone to come after has been chasing the ace. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t always bad, but we’ve been so desensitized that the next movie has to outdo the last one or we almost wont even pay attention.<br /><br />So did I like it or not? It has its moments, but in between them are forced gags beyond what you already knew the movie was about. I’d say it is better than <em>Semi-Pro</em> and not as good as <em>Anchorman</em>. So that doesn’t really say much. I guess all you need to know was that Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play adults who become step brothers after their parents get married. Your level of expectation is your own problem, but the title and cast should have already told you whether or not you wanted to see this movie.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong>* * ½ out of * * * *</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-22802362022977032372008-07-19T07:26:00.001-05:002008-07-19T07:29:54.325-05:00Review: The Dark Knight<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SIHdduF9F1I/AAAAAAAAAQc/wSFndGfhfV4/s1600-h/Dark_Knight_poster.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224700545385437010" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SIHdduF9F1I/AAAAAAAAAQc/wSFndGfhfV4/s320/Dark_Knight_poster.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Cane, Morgan Freeman <strong>Director</strong>: Christopher Nolan<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: July 18, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 152 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG-13<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Warner Bros.<br /><br />I have done my absolute best to keep my expectations in check for <em>The Dark Knight</em>. Considering the fact that the viral marketing for this film started <em>2 years ago</em>, the very notion of the film succeeding on any level under the weight of its own designed expectation isn’t simply preposterous – it is unimaginable. The truth is, for as overdone as the marketing seemed to be, the greatest prank the campaign pulled was fooling us all into thinking we were prepared for what we were about to experience.<br /><br />For those who haven’t seen it I will keep it spoiler free but for anyone reading this, you already know enough of the plot to get started – Batman and the Joker battle for supremacy in Gotham. The first thing I noticed about the film that it has a completely different feel to it than any other movie based on a super hero or comic book character. You almost immediately forget you are watching a superhero, or even a Batman movie, as it hits the ground running with a bank heist. Instantly it has the feel of <strong>Michael Mann’s</strong> <em>Heat</em>. As the movie tears on, you realize that you aren’t watching a comic book movie at all but rather a sophisticated crime drama that happens to be housed in the walls of the superhero genre. That is just one of the many surprises <strong>Christopher Nolan</strong> has in store.<br /><br />As a general rule of thumb, comic book/superhero movies stick to a couple basic ground rules: good versus evil where the hero is matched against a villain attempting to inflict peril on an unsuspecting city or group of people. To simply say <em>The Dark Knight</em> is different may be the understatement of the year. Nolan digs so much deeper and gives us a movie that is far more complex than that simple premise. In <em>Batman Begins</em>, we saw the the transformation of Bruce Wayne into Batman. <em>The Dark Knight</em> asks, “What now?” That ‘what now’ is that Wayne has grown weary of his role as Gotham’s savoir after being unjustly labeled a vigilante killer by the very city he has been trying to protect. The timing of the Joker’s introduction only further compounds this dilemma. He is at first, hell-bent on destroying Batman by way of humiliation by repeatedly asking him to reveal his true identity. He continues his murderous rampages while laying the blame at Batman’s feet. And everyone buys into the Joker’s plan. In the meantime, Batman/Bruce Wayne and Gotham have put all their faith in the city’s new District Attorney, Harvey Dent to rid the town of crime once and for all. It’s quite a little love triangle as each man realizes they need one another to fulfill their own agenda. Wayne realizes he needs Dent to help leave the life of Batman behind, the Joker realizes he needs Batman to feed his own anarchistic tendencies, and at one point or another Dent needs them both. The line of morality gets further blurred as we go. What is right and wrong in the name of right and wrong becomes the greater question as we further decent into the darkness of the human soul. It is that exploration that gives this film its bite and sets it apart from anything else before it.<br /><br />The creation and application of Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego, is contingent on spending his time developing new weapons and armor in an effort to make himself as indestructible as he can because as a superhero without super powers. Batman is merely human and he knows his limitations. Where the Joker succeeds as an adversary is not attacking him physically but in his awareness of what makes Batman the way he is, or has become. Any of his attempted physical attacks are manifested from his understanding of the darkness where Batman exists. His weapon is knowledge and it is with this that he inflicts the most damage to Batman.<br /><br />For all of this movie’s haunting moral complexities, it would be nothing without the excellent performances from its cast, of which there are many. Where do you start? <strong>Heath Ledger</strong> gives the performance of a lifetime – his or anyone else’s – as the Joker. His performance will go down as one of the greatest movie villains of all time, right next to Hannibal Lector in <em>Silence of the Lambs</em>, Darth Vader in <em>Star Wars</em>, and Alex DeLarge in <em>A Clockwork Orange</em>. It should come as no surprise that he seemingly pulled inspiration from all three. His Joker is sadistic, nihilistic, shows no empathy and is completely devoid of any character arc. What’s more, Ledger disappears into the role not just in his over the top approach to the character, but in the subtleties; the way he carries himself, the way he licks his lips like a rabid dog in between lines of dialogue, even the Joker’s trademark maniacal laugh has a psychotic tinge to it. As sad as it is that Ledger is not around to see and promote the film, it only fuels the performance that much further. The same way we are not given any explanation as to the Joker’s origin in the movie, we are all left to wonder just how Ledger brought that character to life as he did. It is perfect in every sense of the word and the lack of clarification as to how it happened makes it that much more haunting. It is hard to overlook the impact his death has on the movie but if he wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, like he deserves, it will be because he gave us a brilliant performance, not because he can’t do it again. <br /><br />As great as Ledger is, you can’t overlook the performances from the rest of the cast. <strong>Aaron Eckhart</strong> as the no-nonsense DA Harvey Dent and his eventual transformation into Two-Face is beautifully tragic and he plays both sides to the hilt. Dent balances out the film as he provides the character arc that the Joker could not. <strong>Maggie Gyllenhaal</strong> makes us all (happily) forget <strong>Katie Holmes</strong> ever had anything to do with these movies. <strong>Michael Caine</strong> as Alfred and <strong>Morgan Freeman</strong> as Lucius Fox provide balance and wisdom in their respective roles. And <strong>Gary Oldman</strong> gives another understated performance as James Gordon. With a cast as strong as this, you start to gravitate away from the silly notion that seasoned and accomplished actors don’t belong in a genre movie like this.<br /><br />At the end of it all, you have a swiftly paced 2 ½ hour movie that realizes every bit of ambition and scope that it set out to, and with respect, actually makes all previous Batman films worse by comparison. Nolan has created a masterpiece that will stay with you long after you finish watching it. <em>Superman</em> may have laid the foundation and <em>Spider-Man</em> may have made it a profitable business, but <em>The Dark Knight</em> transcends the genre by raising the bar and turning it into an art form.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br />* * * * out of * * * *The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-86973434649816673132008-07-18T22:54:00.001-05:002008-07-18T22:54:10.179-05:00tMF Top Five - Best Superhero MoviesComic books and superheroes have been around forever. Almost as soon as they rose to prominence in popular culture, TV shows and movies began taking shape as a popular vehicle for the art form. Superman started it all but it wasn’t until the 2000’s X-Men that the genre was considered a profitable business. The upside is that over the last decade, a lot of our favorite comic book characters were brought to life on the big screen. The downside is that some of them sucked. 2008, in particular the summer, has been the year of the superhero/comic book movie. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Hancock, and Hellboy II, have already wowed us in one degree or another, but on the eve of the granddaddy of them all – The Dark Knight – tMF takes a look back at the best of the genre so far. <br/><br/><a href='http://themovie-fanatic.com/tmf_top_5/jeremy%5c%27s_top_5/best-superhero-movies/'>read more</a> | <a href='http://digg.com/movies/tMF_Top_Five_Best_Superhero_Movies'>digg story</a>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-26213854635092459682008-07-03T00:10:00.000-05:002008-07-03T00:12:47.047-05:00Review: Hancock<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGxfUHh-vZI/AAAAAAAAAQM/kzR3XiZR0Zs/s1600-h/Hancockposter.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218650867439156626" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGxfUHh-vZI/AAAAAAAAAQM/kzR3XiZR0Zs/s320/Hancockposter.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Peter Berg<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: July 2, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 92 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG-13<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Columbia Pictures<br /><br />With the exception of the title, I have been starring at a blank word document for about half an hour. In my head, this film has rated 1 star to 4 stars and back. Even now, I have no idea how it’s going to end up.<br /><br />Hancock (<strong>Will Smith</strong>) is the anti-superhero. When he’s not saving peoples lives he is passed out drunk on a street corner somewhere or drinking himself into a stupor on his way to being passed out somewhere. He is a mess. When he isn’t drunk, he is <em>helping</em> save the city from random low-end thugs. I use the term “helping” loosely because his nonchalant approach to property damage mid-rescue seems to be a great source of displeasure for those in the city he is trying to help. His antics finally become too much of a cross to bear and the city turns against him. It is curious that he doesn’t seem at all phased by the fact that people seem to despise his existence yet still keeps coming to their rescue.<br /><br />When he saves the life of a fledgling PR executive, Ray Embrey (<strong>Jason Bateman</strong>), Hancock is given an interesting proposal: allow Ray to help him clean up his image so the town can realize that they really do need him around, thereby giving him renewed purpose. Sounds like a win for everyone but Ray’s wife, Mary (<strong>Charlize Theron</strong>) has her doubts. The interaction between Hancock and Ray are some of the best parts of the movie. As for Hancock himself, I liked him more when he was the bitter asshole that nobody liked more than the “corporate” superhero they tried to turn him in to. Story-wise, it would have been an interesting concept to allow Hancock to continue to being the sarcastic jerk he always was and make the city change their approach to dealing with him. After all, they were the ones who stood to gain the most from his abilities. <br /><br />For as upbeat and silly as the movie is portrayed, there is something very dark lying just below the surface. That is part of the problem with <em>Hancock</em>. There were traces of really interesting angles on the superhero cliché, but always just out of reach. The premise itself is intriguing but it’s almost as if they weren’t sure how to play it consistently. The beginning of the movie had fascinating story elements but the CGI was so bad it was almost a distraction, the middle had some great starting points for plot advances that went nowhere to make room for more action, and the end was just a sloppy, shameless pile of sappy <em>Legend of Bagger Vance</em>-type sentiment. Mixed bag doesn’t begin to describe how I felt watching this. Every time it felt like they were heading in a direction that could get things back on track, something stupid happened that made me shake my head in shame. It’s like watching <strong>Deal or No Deal</strong> and seeing some moron piss away offer after offer from the banker that would change their life forever on the slim chance that they have the million dollar case until you finally get so frustrated with their ignorance and arrogance that you hope they walk out of there with the penny just to prove a point.<br /><br />But for all of its problems, <em>Hancock</em> wasn’t a complete waste; just a fistful of wasted opportunity. There is something to be said about watching the story of a superhero that isn’t based on material we are all familiar with beforehand. There are inherent risks to this approach but the originality is refreshing. If only they could have figured out how to harness those ideas into a movie worthy of its intentions.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong>* * ½ out of * * * *</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-44428343200303569382008-07-02T00:23:00.001-05:002008-07-02T00:33:21.341-05:00tMF Top Five - Worst Movies of 2008... so farEarlier this week I posted a top five list of the Best Movies of 2008… so far. For the most part, people seem to agree with the list (a lot of Cloverfield haters out there…). People agreed for a pretty simple reason; there haven’t been a lot of great movies to come out this year. Probably more seasonality than anything, but they have been few and far between. In the interest of fair and balanced reporting, it’s only right to present the other, uglier side of the coin. I actually had a lot more trouble narrowing down this list to only five. There have been some bad movies so far; some due to failed expectation and some because they were just plain awful. For me, these were the worst of the worst.<br /><br /><a href="http://themovie-fanatic.com/tmf_top_5/jeremy%5c%27s_top_5/worst-movies-of-2008-so-far/">read more</a> <a href="http://digg.com/movies/tMF_Top_Five_Worst_Movies_of_2008_so_far">digg story</a>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-20702395685523286832008-07-01T02:05:00.000-05:002008-07-01T02:08:52.458-05:00DVD Review: My Blueberry Nights<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGnXd4Db1pI/AAAAAAAAAQE/X1RaCABUHk8/s1600-h/My_Blueberry_Nights_poster.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217938551548401298" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGnXd4Db1pI/AAAAAAAAAQE/X1RaCABUHk8/s320/My_Blueberry_Nights_poster.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Wong Kar Wai<br /><strong>DVD Release Date</strong>: July 1, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 90 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG-13<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: The Weinstein Company<br /><br />News flash: relationships are hard. They can be very frustrating at times. The way men and women attempt to communicate has always been a source of equal parts fascination and bewilderment to me. Everybody wants to know what the other person is thinking but unlike any other interaction in life, we find these odd methods of approach when dealing with the opposite sex. Rarely do people just come out and say what they think or ask what they actually want to know. Women seem to always want to know what guys are thinking. Men, on the other hand, seem less interested in wanting to know what women are thinking than they are finding ways to not let on what they are thinking. I think everyone can agree that the whole thing is absurd, yet we still find ourselves doing exactly that, from time to time. <em>My Blueberry Nights</em> a character study that dissects this very concept. <br /><br />Elizabeth (<strong>Norah Jones</strong>) goes into a New York café looking for her boyfriend. The man who runs the café, Jeremy (<strong>Jude Law</strong>) possesses this uncanny ability of identifying and remembering his customers by remembering what they order. The suggestion that everyone that comes to the shop orders the same thing is not questioned, for fear of devaluing the plot device, I imagine. Anyway, through a series of quick questions and answers, Elizabeth gets enough information from Jeremy to suspect that her boyfriend is cheating on her. Over the course of the next several nights, she comes in to the café after hours and the two bond by way of conversation and blueberry pie. Just when the meetings are starting to hit their stride, she comes in one night and suggests that she is going to give the boyfriend another chance. A few nights go by in her absence until she sullenly returns, silently conceding defeat. The two rekindle their conversation and the next night, she is gone. <br /><br />By way of the title cards sporadically placed throughout the movie, we find out that she is now in Memphis, Tennessee. She is working two jobs, a bar at night, and a restaurant during the day, to save for a car. Where she plans to go is not discussed or even eluded to. She sends Jeremy postcards for the purpose of staying in touch, but doesn’t reveal her whereabouts. During this stint she encounters a local policeman named Arnie (<strong>David Strathairn</strong>) and later his soon-to-be ex-wife Sue Lynne (<strong>Rachel Weisz</strong>). She learns that Arnie has tried to quit drinking on several occasions but has yet to accomplish it fully. The meetings of consequence Arnie and Lizzie (she changed her name with her location, I guess) share are the strongest parts of the movie. They keep running into each other and divulging a little more to each other about each other along the way, until something happens that makes Elizabeth/Lizzie leave town. <br /><br />Now she ends up somewhere cocktailing at a slum casino. She meets Leslie (<strong>Natalie Portman</strong>) who just lost a decent chunk of money on a bad beat at a poker table. Leslie talks Beth (oh, she goes by Beth now) into loaning her all the money she saved with the promise that she would either get it back if she won, or get her car if she lost. She loans the money, the money gets lost, and the two end up going to Las Vegas so Leslie can get her hands on more loot. Until something happens that makes Elizabeth/Lizzie/Beth hit the road again. <br /><br />The problem with any character study as a movie is that the character(s) have to be interesting enough to sustain the runtime of the movie. On the surface, Elizabeth’s conflict was enough to generate inaugural interest but the more the story progressed, the less we knew about why it was all happening in the first place. Apart from her being an angsty 20-something that needed some sort of adventure, we never fully grasp her intentions.<br /><br />From a technical standpoint, the movie is well shot. Director <strong>Wong Kar Wai</strong> (in his first English language feature film) goes to great lengths to evoke emotion from the surroundings. But trading style for substance is a problem <em>My Blueberry Nights</em> was too broke to afford. It is worth mentioning that Norah Jones does a decent job in her first acting performance. She is helped by the fact that her character seems as much out of her element as she. A truer test would have been to give her something of substance to sink her teeth into, but she does well enough with what she is given. <br /><br />Like a woman or two I have encountered in my life, <em>My Blueberry Nights</em> looks really good, tries to be sexier than it should be allowed to be, but in the end is pretty hallow and boring. And slow. I had a conversation about this movie with someone recently and they said they hadn’t seen it but thought the poster was one of the best of the year. When they asked for my critique of the film, I gave them the most honest response I could think of:<br /><br /><em>“If that’s the case, you’re better off looking at the poster for 2 hours.”</em><br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong>* * out of * * * *</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-6569781601318967182008-07-01T00:31:00.000-05:002008-07-02T00:32:45.051-05:00tMF Top Five - Best Movies of 2008... so farWe are almost exactly halfway through the year and smack in the middle of the summer movie season. Sounds like as good a time as any to take a step back and grade the movie year thus far. This article was written last week in preparation for the end of the month and wouldn’t you just know it! Pixar had to go and ruin the party! Thanks to WALL*E my list is now in complete shambles. I know it is only June but mark my words, six months from now I will still be talking about WALL*E as one of, if not THE best, movies of 2008. It is a masterstroke of filmmaking, and not only as an animated film. I defy you to come up with a more beautifully shot and wildly romantic live action movie in the last few years. With WALL*E resting quietly atop the list as my favorite movie so far, I decided to leave the rest of the list unedited so you can get a look at the top five other best movies of the year.<br /><br /><a href="http://themovie-fanatic.com/tmf_top_5/jeremy%5c%27s_top_5/best-of-2008-so-far/">read more</a> <a href="http://digg.com/movies/tMF_Best_Movies_of_2008_so_far">digg story</a>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-42009528550880187572008-06-28T02:04:00.000-05:002008-07-01T03:09:56.335-05:00Review: WALL*E<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiF3COiQFI/AAAAAAAAAP8/dkl4K17oxAY/s1600-h/WALL-Eposter.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217567348845854802" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiF3COiQFI/AAAAAAAAAP8/dkl4K17oxAY/s320/WALL-Eposter.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong> (voices): Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Sigourney Weaver, Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Andrew Stanton<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: June 27, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 103 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: G<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios<br /><br />I have always said that the computer age is ruining the way people communicate with each other. Not that long ago when people wanted to interact they had conversations, either in person or over the phone, and if geography dictated, people even hand wrote letters to one another. Crazy. Now everything is email, text messages, instant messages, picture messages, MySpace comments, Twitter updates, and so on. For all of the “advances” in communication that have been made in the last 20 years, the very syntax of our language has deteriorated so much that people that grew up at any point without the internet or cell phones will potentially have a hard time keeping up. And it’s only gonna get worse.<br /><br /><em>Wall-E</em> takes place in the year 2815. Earth, as we know it, no longer exists. It has been cannibalized unrecognizably and covered in trash. With nowhere else to turn, humanity has abandoned the planet while thousands of WALL-E units (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) were left to convert the garbage into disposable form. Sponsoring the Earth’s exodus is the Buy n Large Corporation, a global company that essentially controls Earth, in the form of space station resorts called Axiom, where people are waited on hand and foot. And when I say every comfort is afforded, I mean every comfort. Unlimited food and drink. An endless supply of anything one could ever dream of, everyone has gorged themselves worthless. Even that pesky nuisance of walking has been eliminated as everyone hovers around on devices designed to eliminate the need to do so. The plan was to get everyone off Earth for five years, allow the WALL-E units to clean up, and then return when living conditions had improved. That was 700 years ago. Over time, all of the units were deactivated. Except one.<br /><br />WALL-E spends his time doing what he was created to do — compact and organize trash. He has his method down to a science and has his science down to an art. Compacting and stacking trash high enough to form a new skyline, he continues his routine without interruption. He gathers items he finds interesting to take back to his home each night. His only interaction is that of a cockroach that follows him around while he works. If no other event had taken place, I imagine WALL-E wouldn’t have even minded, not knowing a whole other world exists. That is until…<br /><br />EVE is a robot sent from the Axiom to find plant life. A plant would mean Earth was capable of sustaining life and the inhabitants of the Axiom would be allowed to return home. WALL-E immediately falls for EVE, even after being repeatedly almost blown to bits. He follows her around like a lost dog and the two eventually become friends. WALL-E shows EVE the plant he found working one day, she immediately stores the plant and shuts down awaiting deportation, according to her directive. When they come to pick her up, WALL-E stows away and goes back to the Axiom and into a world that he has never been accustomed to. Where EVE’s directive is to get the plant back to the Axiom, WALL-E’s directive is to get back to EVE.<br /><br />This is the part of the movie where you will make your decision as to whether or not you liked it. The first half will be almost unanimously regarded as classic, playing like a great silent film, devoid of almost all dialogue. We simply watch the minutiae of WALL-E’s existence and get a real sense of his personality. But it is in his interaction with other life forms that make the film brilliant. Two recent movies dealing with character isolation come to mind: <em>Cast Away</em> and <em>I Am Legend</em>. If you have any complaint about either of these movies, it is the third act — when they are finally forced to re-insert themselves into some kind of interaction beings other than themselves. They both fail in this regard because they couldn’t figure out how to close the story after showing the characters by themselves for the majority of the movie. WALL-E is not only unafraid of interaction, he welcomes it, he forces it. He cannot be bothered by the insecurities of meeting a stranger. Those meetings are merely stepping stones to a greater cause: finding EVE.<br /><br />Movies satirizing the dysfunction of the industrial world consuming itself in the name of advancement are nothing new. The last place I ever expected to see that message, however, was in a Disney/Pixar movie. This is the 9th feature film from Pixar and with each movie, they find a way to advance the art of computer animation by such leaps and bounds that it is hard to imagine what they will look like five years from now. But <em>WALL-E</em> is exponential growth, both in story and animation and design. Writer/director <strong>Andrew Stanton</strong> impressed us all with the physics of believing you were really under water in <em>Finding Nemo</em>. If you thought that was good, wait’ll you get a load of this. He has taken his love of personifying inanimate objects, mixed it with the common Pixar themes of love, loyalty and friendship, and set it against a dystopian landscape for some of the most scathing social commentary in years.<br /><br />Simply put, <em>Wall-E</em> is Pixar Animation Studio’s magnum opus. It is the most beautifully drawn and wildly romantic movie I have seen in many years. The deeper message may be lost on kids but make no mistake, six months from now we will still be talking about this as one of, if not the best movie of the year.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong>* * * * out of * * * *</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-67174456523379644562008-06-10T01:57:00.000-05:002008-06-30T02:03:42.424-05:00DVD Review: John Adams<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiEjrEtM6I/AAAAAAAAAP0/IobEC2C1o3w/s1600-h/john+adams+dvd.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217565916701471650" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiEjrEtM6I/AAAAAAAAAP0/IobEC2C1o3w/s320/john+adams+dvd.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, David Morse, Stephen Dillane<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Tom Hooper<br /><strong>DVD Release Date</strong>: June 10, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 501 min<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: HBO Films<br /><br /><em>“It is no small thing to build a new world, gentlemen.”</em> – Ben Franklin<br /><br /><em>“I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.”</em> – John Adams<br /><br /><em>John Adams</em>, the HBO miniseries based on <strong>David McCullough’s</strong> bestselling biography, accomplishes something that John Adams, the man, attempted to do for the better part of his political life, speak of his accomplishments, a feat which is achieved here in grand fashion. Most of our knowledge of John Adams is only that he was the 2nd President of the United States, but this miniseries tells a much broader story spanning more than 50 years, showing events before, during, and after his presidency. And what a fascinating story it is.<br /><br /><em>John Adams</em> is the story of a man more complex than history would allow him to be viewed. John Adams (<strong>Paul Giamatti</strong>) was a stubborn little man whose moral foundation was built on strong principles far greater than most of those he surrounded himself with. His honesty and outspoken nature were among his best and worst characteristics. Beginning with his unpopular decision to defend the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre in the name of the law, a foundation he held very close, most of his decision making prowess came in the form of counsel by his wife, Abigail Adams (<strong>Laura Linney</strong>). Some of his decisions made in her absence have been widely and rightly condemned as being poor. She was his voice of reason any time he was to let his emotion blindly drive him into doing or saying something out of turn. The movie plays very well as a love story between the two. Separated for the better part of the first 14 years of their marriage, she stood by her man through every adversity encountered in the name of chasing his dream.<br /><br />The sacrifices made by Adams were greater than those involving his wife and his family. The friendships of the men we came to know as the Founding Fathers were also strained as the country declared its independence and moved forward with the revolution. It was interesting to watch men and their alliances transform as the differing views of how to run a country’s government began to take hold. There was no blueprint for success, there were no definition of boundaries and title; they were making it up as they went along. We now look to our country to guide us but there was no history telling them how things should be run. They simply did what they thought was best as determined by the collective majority of those put into power.<br /><br />Watching <em>John Adams</em> is like discovering our own history for the first time. I found myself feeling very patriotic. More times than not when we get a movie that involves a part of our American history, it is told in a self aggrandizing manner. John Adams told the story from a much different perspective. It was not afraid to show the trouble these men had in making the decisions that eventually shaped our country into what it is today. It showed each man less God-like than history has made them out to be. It wasn’t easy and mistakes were made. For that I think we should all be more thankful knowing they were ordinary men with extraordinary dreams and the fortitude and drive to realize them regardless of what obstacle stood in their way.<br /><br />You cannot watch this film without being in awe of the multitude of great performances. Giamatti and Linney were the backbone to be sure, but the supporting members of the story provided a depth that would not have been able to be achieved if it weren’t for the great acting. <strong>Tom Wilkinson</strong> plays Benjamin Franklin as a man wise beyond his years and just as crazy. <strong>Stephen Dillane</strong> as Thomas Jefferson is a sophisticated southerner as headstrong in his ideals as the next, and <strong>David Morse</strong> as General and President George Washington not only bears an uncanny resemblance to our nation’s first president, he commands attention every time he is on screen.<br /><br />Toward the end of the series, after another bout of frustration with how his legacy is to be upheld, Adams tells his wife that he should have followed his father’s course and been a farming, shoemaking, deacon so as to have avoided what he deemed to be only headaches left in the wake of his political career. The fact of the matter is that when a man makes sacrifices as John Adams did during his life to realize a dream that he may not even live to fully realize, that shows a selflessness of immeasurable proportion that we cannot fully grasp in our present state of affairs. History may not have allowed him to be as iconic a figure as the rest of the Founding Fathers, but for all his shortcomings he had something most of the rest of them lacked. He was honest and driven, yet fallible. That he made no apology for being any of these things made something far more important than any character trait he may have possessed: human.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong>**** out of ****</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-10759230503563197872008-06-10T01:47:00.000-05:002008-06-30T01:57:10.333-05:00Review: Kung Fu Panda<div align="left"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiBz4AKP_I/AAAAAAAAAPU/BxS7eIa4ilY/s1600-h/Kung_fu_panda_poster.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217562896515088370" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiBz4AKP_I/AAAAAAAAAPU/BxS7eIa4ilY/s320/Kung_fu_panda_poster.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong> (voices): Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Mark Osborne and John Stevenson<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: June 6, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 92 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: DreamWorks Animation<br /><br />A decade on from the release of <em>Toy Story</em>, the new car smell of the age of computer animated feature films is gone. Nowadays it is difficult to justify liking something simply because it looks good. I’m afraid that ship has sailed. No, now we assume the film will look great and so we look to the story to work in conjunction with the animation to make a great film. These days, our assumptions and expectations have been heightened by the success of so many computer animated feature films, but sadly there are few really great ones. But the good news is that it is time to clear a spot towards the top because we have a new member of that illustrious circle.<br /><br /><em>Kung Fu Panda</em> is the story of Po (<strong>Jack Black</strong>), a gentle, lumbering beast of a panda who works for his father (who just happens to be a goose) in his noodle shop. He daydreams of kung fu but he is not what you would call a pillar of physical fitness. No, he is as clumsy as you imagine a panda bear would be at such a skillful art as kung fu. Or at waiting tables. Or at walking stairs, up or down. Po idolizes the Furious Five, a group of supremely skilled martial arts warriors trained by their master, Shifu (<strong>Dustin Hoffman</strong>), so much so that he talks to their action figures in his bedroom window upon waking up each morning. When an ancient master has a vision of an imprisoned evil warrior Tai Lung (<strong>Ian McShane</strong>), a former student of Shifu, escaping and returning malice to the Valley of Peace, he calls for a formal ceremony so he can determine who is the mightiest of warriors and name that one the Dragon Warrior.<br /><br />Po heads to the ceremony, overwhelmed by the prospect of being able to see in the Furious Five in action and in person: Tigress (<strong>Angelina Jolie</strong>), Monkey (<strong>Jackie Chan</strong>), Mantis (<strong>Seth Rogen</strong>), Viper (<strong>Lucy Liu</strong>), and Crane (<strong>David Cross</strong>). He lumbers up an infinitely long flight of stairs to get to the stadium only to realize it has taken him so long the doors have closed, leaving him outside with no clear line of sight. As the ceremony unfolds inside and the Furious Five perform, he finally devises a plan to make it inside to see the action. Only he falls in from the sky just as Master Oogway chooses the Dragon Warrior. Who do you think he picked?<br /><br />This much and the rest of the story is devoid of any real surprises from a narrative perspective, but the writing is not lazy either. It’s just pretty modest martial arts fare. So what makes the movie so good? I can’t really say it’s any one thing over another - the story is a perfect blend of action and humor. My only complaint is that the characters of the Furious Five weren’t as developed as the rest of the cast. It would have made the story longer and probably resulted in a loss of steam, but I would have liked to see more of them. And I know I just got through saying it doesn’t count but it is worth mentioning that the animation is really spectacular. DreamWorks Animation really stepped up their game from their previous films. Not only is it beautifully drawn and colorfully vibrant, the action scenes are extremely well choreographed. You can definitely tell a lot of care was put into making them as artistic as possible.<br /><br />The more I think about it, the best part of the film is none of the things I mentioned - its more what this movie is not. The original idea for the film was to make it a parody and a spoof of martial arts movies. But co-director <strong>John Stevenson</strong> disliked the idea and decided instead to give the film an epic feel while blending in light comedy so it could stand tall beside the films he was modeling it after rather than making fun of them. Mission accomplished.<br /><br />Now there’s your secret ingredient.<br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong>*** ½ out of ****</strong> </div>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-23327901485076780492008-06-09T01:44:00.000-05:002008-06-30T01:47:46.641-05:00Review: You Don't Mess With the Zohan<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiA5io2npI/AAAAAAAAAPM/KfGvEMEvqno/s1600-h/zohan.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217561894347775634" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGiA5io2npI/AAAAAAAAAPM/KfGvEMEvqno/s320/zohan.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Dennis Dugan<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: June 6, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 113 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG-13<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Columbia Pictures<br /><br />My appreciation of the career of <strong>Adam Sandler</strong> has been a tumultuous affair. It started with <em>Billy Madison</em>. With every bone in my critic and non-critic being, I know it to be an atrocity of a movie. But I still like it. <em>Happy Gilmore</em> paid it forward and then <em>Bulletproof</em> came along. I didn’t like it, but I appreciated the departure from his brand of stupid comedy. Then he went back to his stupid brand of comedy for a few films, then <em>Punch-Drunk Love</em> came out and blew everybody away. Then he went back to the well, then <em>Spanglish</em>. The well. <em>Reign Over Me</em>. The well. And so on. Whether it works or not, every time he tries something different he follows it up with a few old stand by’s. You almost have to admire his tenacity.<br /><br />Almost.<br /><br /><em>You Don’t Mess with the Zohan</em> is Sandler swimming to the bottom of the well. For that he makes no apology. From the time the movie starts, there is no mistake that this will be a huge dish of Sandler pie with all the fixins. The title alone is ridiculous and the premise is nothing short of insanely stupid. Zohan Divr (Sandler) is the top agent for the Mossad, the Israeli secret police, who grows tired of the fighting between the Israel and Palestine. He decides to fake his own death and move to New York City to realize his dream of becoming a hairdresser. People who will see this movie will see it because they want to with the knowledge of the title and the premise in hand before doing so. Anyone that willingly sees it with that kind of ammunition will enjoy it.<br /><br />I’m not sure what I expected but I am surprised by how much I didn’t hate it. I keep avoiding saying out loud that I liked it, because it’s almost shameful that I did. <em>You Don’t Mess with the Zohan</em> is the kind of movie that you have every right to despise but you can’t find a reason to do so. Not a good one anyway. The movie is stupid, but it generated enough laughs to keep me entertained. Even if the political message got a little heavy-handed towards the conclusion, it was handled with such a “can’t we all just get along” approach that it doesn’t get weighed down. The plot doesn’t really surface until oddly late in the film, but it is only there to drive the action. The movie is really just about a military super-agent that wants to cut hair. If there was any question at all, after the first five minutes you knew that Sandler and Co. were only out to do one thing – entertain themselves and hope everyone else got the joke.<br /><br />The story is ridiculous but it is so over the top you can’t even use that as an argument. It reminds me of the final battle at the end of <em>8 Mile</em>. Rabbit knew exactly what weaknesses his opponent would try to use against him so he defended himself by using it first, leaving them only one response:<br /><br />Silence.<br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong>*** out of ****</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-38060465058794511452008-06-02T01:38:00.000-05:002008-06-30T01:43:42.499-05:00Review: The Strangers<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGh_jCgoRfI/AAAAAAAAAPE/MdfKGomgtiM/s1600-h/strangers-poster2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217560408254596594" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SGh_jCgoRfI/AAAAAAAAAPE/MdfKGomgtiM/s320/strangers-poster2.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman<br /><strong>Director</strong>: Bryan Bertino<br /><strong>Release Date</strong>: May 30, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 90 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Rouge Pictures<br /><br />The idea of being terrorized by strangers is nothing new to the horror or thriller genres. Exponentially, the idea of being terrorized by those same strangers within the confines of your home should be scarier. The idea of someone forcing their way into your house threatens the belief we have that we are safest in the sanctuary of our own home. <em>The Strangers</em> attempts to weave that idea into a story, which it does pretty well. It then attempts to sustain that idea for the length of a two-hour movie, which it doesn’t do very well.<br /><br /><em>The Strangers </em>opens with a narrative voice-over explaining that the film is inspired by true events. Oh, this old gag again? I get it and all, and for a story steeped in simplicity, the concept of building atmosphere before we even get started is pretty vital, but idea of tagging everything with this disclaimer is getting a bit tired. So for everyone keeping tabs, we have: being terrorized by strangers (scary), in your own home (scarier), in a story based on true events (yatzee!).<br /><br />Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, true story, scary scary, yadda yadda yadda… Kristen McKay (<strong>Liv Tyler</strong>) and James Hoyt (<strong>Scott Speedman</strong>) leave a friend's wedding reception to spend the evening at the Hoyt summer home. We know this because it is explained in the opening narrative along with all that “true story” business. When the film actually starts we see the two of them leaving the reception and arriving at the house. The house has been prepared for the arrival of a newly-engaged couple, but for reasons untold, the night didn’t turn out as planned. There is some of the reserved, awkward banter you would expect from a couple who has just not gotten engaged. Then comes a knock on the door.<br /><br />Not just a knock. <em>A bang</em>.<br /><br />A woman comes to the door asking for someone named Tamera. They tell her she has the wrong house and send her on her way. She comes back later - with friends. They are all wearing a different type of mask and begin eliminating all forms of communication and all methods of escape. They make noises, appear out of nowhere then disappear again, write cryptic messages and generally display the kind of creepy behavior you would expect from a group of masked folk messing with people at 4:30 in the morning. The anomaly here is that just about the time things are starting to pick up, everything falls apart.<br /><br />Tyler and Speeman are fine (yes, “fine” is as good a compliment as I can muster) as the leads and for what they are tasked with, they accomplish it well enough. They just aren’t given much to work with. I like the simple approach to the story and the setup, both direct and implied; I just didn’t like the execution. It is hard to place all the blame on first-time writer and director <strong>Bryan Bertino</strong>, who seemed to have every intention of making a good movie. On one hand, his direction, at least in the first half of the movie, shows promise. He accomplishes quite a lot in terms of tension and atmosphere with very little to work with. On the other hand, that very little to work with bit comes back to bite him since he provided the material in the first place. Instead he is forced to use tired, stock ideas such as people and faces appearing out of nowhere and having the soundtrack as the fourth intruder. It’s as if he used up all his good ideas during the first half of the film and then realized he had an hour of movie left to make so was forced to use them all over again.<br /><br />And again.<br /><br />And again. I guess the road to hell is paved with good intentions.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong>** out of ****</strong>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-40125339214328215252008-05-17T01:59:00.000-05:002008-05-17T02:06:36.674-05:00DVD Review: Serial Mom (Collector's Edition)<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SC6C3ZeHN0I/AAAAAAAAAOs/3057ZBIFYO0/s1600-h/serial+mom.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5201238507901105986" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SC6C3ZeHN0I/AAAAAAAAAOs/3057ZBIFYO0/s320/serial+mom.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard<br /><strong>Director</strong>: John Waters<br /><strong>DVD Release Date</strong>: May 6, 2008<br /><strong>Running Time</strong>: 94 min<br /><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: R<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: Universal Studios<br /><br /><br />“Wow, I haven’t seen that movie in years.”<br /><br />Yeah, that’s what I said too. I remember seeing and liking it when it came out but hadn’t thought about Serial Mom in years until I was given the opportunity to review the newly released Collector’s Edition.<br /><br />In case you don’t remember the story. Beverly Sutphin (<strong>Kathleen Turner</strong>) is a suburban housewife who seems to have everything. Her house is always immaculate, she makes a killer meatloaf and she loves her family dearly; her obliviously nerdy husband Eugene (<strong>Sam Waterston</strong>), their constantly lovesick daughter, Misty (<strong>Ricki Lake</strong>) and their horror-film loving son, Chip (<strong>Matthew Lillard</strong>). Together they are the portrait of the perfect all-American family except for the nagging little detail that behind closed doors Beverly is a raging sociopath who dispatches her victims with little reason.<br /><br />Of course to her, she has all the reason in the world. Her reasons range from off-handed threats, perceived or otherwise, to members of her family to poor social habits such as not recycling and wearing white shoes after Labor Day. The relevance of her reasoning is unimportant because Beverly doesn’t seem to exist on the same plane of social conscience as everyone else in the known world. Her motivations are also ingeniously left uncovered. We have no idea what makes her tick other than to suggest that when things don’t go her way she simply eliminates the nuisance. In the movie there is no evidence that she is normal until something makes her snap. I imagine that Beverly has been killing for some time and the movie is just a glance at the timeframe in every serial killer’s ‘career’ where they either get lazy or want to get caught. If that is the case, I don’t think she wants to get caught for the sake of stopping her zealous behavior more than I think she actually wants to be applauded for doing the world a service.<br /><br />This is the kind of story that fits perfectly in the John Waters canon. <em>Serial Mom</em> continues his path to mainstream after the campy films of his early career. Like all of the films Waters has made, despite the topic discussed in the movie it really is funny. The contrast between Beverly’s outward persona and the inner demons she tries less and less to hide make the movie more than a one-note joke. The same way that the idea of murder isn’t traditionally a very humorous topic, Waters creates this world of such overblown surrealism that it fits all too tidily. Contrary to the films statement otherwise, this was not based on a true story, at least not that I am aware of.<br /><br />Until this week I had not seen the film since it came out and one thing really struck me as curious. Fifteen years after the film was made, it actually has more depth than it did in 1993. It transformed from a simple comedic satire to a commentary of our current society’s fascination with celebrity and our media’s ignorant willingness to make anyone with a story famous. You have to keep in mind that <strong>O.J., Robert Blake</strong> and Columbine all came after this movie was made. Had this movie been made today it would be significant but with a whole separate feel. As it stands John Waters is either a genius or just got really lucky this time.<br /><br />Or maybe both.<br /><br />And there’s the rub.<br /><br /><strong>*** out of ****</strong><br /><br /><u><strong>DVD Special Features</strong>:</u><br />- <strong>Feature Commentary</strong> with John Waters and Kathleen Turner<br />- <strong>Feature Commentary</strong> with John Waters<br />- <strong><em>Serial Mom</em>: Surreal Moments</strong> – a mini documentary on the making of Serial Mom with Waters and stars of the film reminiscing about the films production.<br />- <strong><em>The Kings of Gore</em>: Herschell Gordon Lewis and David Friedman</strong> – a tribute.<br />- <strong>The Making of Serial Mom</strong> – an original promotional featurette.The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7997128084102235725.post-53225331516135057292008-05-17T01:44:00.000-05:002008-05-17T02:06:58.814-05:00DVD Review: The Great Debaters (2-Disc Special Collector's Edition)<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SC6A1peHNyI/AAAAAAAAAOc/6NQnbkfpT04/s1600-h/GreatDebaters.jpg"></a><br /><div><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SC5_KZeHNwI/AAAAAAAAAOM/rfd2_WoZDSo/s1600-h/the+great+debaters+dvd2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5201234436272109314" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tTvSGmV9NUc/SC5_KZeHNwI/AAAAAAAAAOM/rfd2_WoZDSo/s320/the+great+debaters+dvd2.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Starring</strong>: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Jurnee Smollett, Nate Parker </div><div><strong>Director</strong>: Denzel Washington</div><div><strong>DVD Release Date</strong>: May 13, 2008 </div><div><strong>Running Time</strong>: 123 min </div><div><strong>MPAA Rating</strong>: PG-13<br /><strong>Distributor</strong>: The Weinstein Company</div><div></div><br /><br /><div>When you pair up two great actors in a film you expect great performances from them. This seems like a simple idea, but it doesn’t always play out the way it should. The Great Debaters is touted as having two former winners of the Academy Award for Best Actor going head to head with each other, yet curiously they only share two scenes together, by my count. Both scenes work well but aren’t a true indication of how the movie plays. The Great Debaters follows the true story of Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington), a no-nonsense debate coach and sometime political activist who drove his team to national prominence in 1935 by challenging and defeating some of the best debate schools, white or black, in the nation.<br /><br />The movie opens late at night, in a backwoods establishment. We see a young man drinking and being engaged in a fight by the husband of a woman he was trying to pick up. As the fight escalates, and just before they cross a line that cannot be uncrossed, a poorly dressed man, who was inexplicably running through the woods at that time, steps in and stops the fight. We pick up a few scenes later as that same young man, Henry Lowe (<strong>Nate Parker</strong>), is in class and he and the poorly dressed man from the night before, Tolson, meet again under different circumstances. Movie convention tells us there is no way Henry Lowe is not making the team. After a rigorous, in-house audition, the four members of the debate team are selected. Lowe, of course, is joined by Hamilton Burgess (<strong>Jermaine Williams</strong>), the foundation of previous year's debate team; James Farmer Jr. (<strong>Denzel Whitaker</strong>), an intellectual savant; and Samantha Booke (<strong>Jurnee Smollett</strong>), the only female debater any of them has ever encountered. Each of them brings something to the group, and as a team, they begin blowing out the competition leading to their eventual confrontation with reigning National Debate Champion - Harvard University. Along the way they encounter a rather formulaic look at life as an African American in the South in the 1930s. Or as much as I have been made aware of, having no frame of reference. The view offered of the reality of the racial climate during this time is moving and unapologetic, without being exploitive. The things they see and the situations they are forced into shape them as people and ultimately fuel their motivation throughout the movie.<br /><br />The fact that this movie follows every sports movie convention in the book is irrelevant, just as the end result of the debates, including the final showdown with Harvard, is inconsequential. The story is not so much about what they accomplish as what it took to for them to accomplish it. Ask any fan of professional wrestling (the “sports entertainment” variety): a predetermined outcome does not make the match any less engaging to watch. What makes this movie work isn’t the rags-to-riches type story of the underdog who could; it is a story that demands compassion but doesn't beg for it. This is achieved through the keen direction of Denzel Washington, in his first directorial effort since <em>Antoine Fisher</em> (2002), and through the acting performances. Not only Washington himself, but Whitaker and all of the other members of the debate team. Their characters are mildly underdeveloped, a fact which is outweighed by the strength of their performances. In a movie where the characters are more the story than the story itself, my single complaint is only that I wanted more of them.<br /><br />And there's the rub.<br /><br /><strong>*** out of **** </strong><br /><br /><align="center">- - -<br /><br /><align="left"><strong>DVD Special Features</strong> on the 2-Disc Special Collectors Edition:</div><div>- Deleted Scenes </div><div>- <em>The Great Debaters</em>: A Historical Perspective</div><div>- “That’s What My Baby Likes,” Music Video</div><div>- “My Soul Is A Witness,” Music Video</div><div>- <em>The Great Debaters</em>: A Heritage of Music </div><div>- Scoring The Great Debaters with James Newton Howard and Peter Golub </div><div>- Learning the Art: Our Young Actors Go To Debate Camp - A New Generation of Actors </div><div>- The 1930s Wardrobe of Sharen Davis </div><div>- The Production Design of David J. Bomba </div><div>- The Poetry of Melvin B. Tolson </div></div>The Rubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022453763070251832noreply@blogger.com1